1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an optical fiber adapter and more particularly, to a stackable optical fiber adapter, and each two adjacent bases of a plurality of shell members of the stackable optical fiber adapters can be vertically stacked, horizontally arranged in parallel or assembled in an array structure by a modularized manner to form as an integral assembly by cooperation between a positioning part and a wedged-jointing part, so that more shell members can be installed on the panel with higher density, and effects of stable structure, easy mass production and lower cost can be achieved.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, with rapid development in communication technology and internet, data center venders and telecommunication venders make efforts in fields of high density, high transmission rate, large volume and intelligent equipment. In order to solve the requirements for higher data transmission rate, smaller occupied space and lower power consumption, cabling systems which are an important constitution of physical infrastructure are paid more attention. Electric cables and optical fiber transmission system are two basic transmission mediums in cabling system of the data center. Compared with the electric cable transmission system, the optical fiber transmission system has advantages of larger bandwidth, higher transmission rate, longer transmission distance, thinner volume, better anti-EMI and nice confidentiality, so the optical fiber transmission system will definitely become the future trend.
The optical fiber adapter is a member which is not equipped with light source and widely used in optical fiber transmission system for detachment and connection between optical fibers. Ends of the two optical fibers are precisely aligned with each other and connected through the optical fiber adapter, and the optical signal outputted from the optical fiber of the transmitter can be coupled to the optical fiber of the receiver in maximum degree. Generally, there are many types of small-sized packaged optical fiber connectors, the connector widely used in its field is SC type or LC type, and the LC type optical fiber connector has 6.25 mm of core pitch and 1.25 mm of core alignment and two LC type simplex connectors can then be assembled as a duplex connector. Therefore, the LC type optical fiber connector not only has advantages in size and precise assembly alignment, but also has flexibility in applications of simplex and duplex transmissions both.
However, the plurality of optical fiber connectors are aligned and connected with each other through the internal pipe of the optical fiber adapter. Upon actual application, the user can select the pipe made of ceramic or copper, having high precise dimension, mechanical durability, and very low insertion loss and reflection loss, so that the loss in cross connection between the optical fibers can be ensured to be very low. Please refer to FIG. 12 through FIG. 14. The traditional optical fiber adapter includes a shell member A having a uni-body or two-piece structure. The shell member A defines a plurality of accommodating cavities A1 formed therein, and sockets A10 are disposed at outer openings of the accommodating cavities A1, respectively, and an optical fiber pipe (not shown in FIGs) is transversely penetrated through a central sidewall between each two accommodating cavities A1. Wing plates A2 are respectively protruded at two opposite sides of central portion of the shell member A. When being respectively inserted into the accommodating cavities A1 of the shell member A, the connecting parts of two optical fiber connectors can be guided by the optical fiber pipe to align and connect with each other, so as to ensure nice optical signal transmission.
However, in normal condition, the standard LC type optical fiber adapter is installed on rack-mount panel, and most manufacturers make effort in installing more optical fiber adapters in limited space of the panel for meeting the requirement of entire spatial configuration and efficiently solving the problem of limited bandwidth due to insufficient transmission channels. The shell members A of the plurality of optical fiber adapters are respectively installed in the panel through the wing plates A2 to assemble a 4×4 array structure, but each two adjacent shell members A arranged in parallel are separated by widths of two wing plates A2, it causes that amount of the optical fiber adapters able to be installed on the panel with given standard size is limited and the installation density is hard to be improved, so the entire spatial configuration cannot be properly arranged for actual application.
Moreover, some manufacturers develop other traditional optical fiber adapter, as shown in FIG. 14, and the shell member A has a uni-body structure or two-piece structure and directly has multiple accommodating cavities A1 (such as six or sixteen accommodating cavities A1) formed therein, so the thickness of the wall between the two adjacent accommodating cavities A1 can be efficiently reduced, and total width of the shell member A can be shortened without changing the 6.25 mm of core pitch. However, amount of the accommodating cavities A1 of the shell member A is constant, if the user requires shell members A having different amounts of accommodating cavities A1, the manufacture must create different molds for productions, and the total manufacturing process of injection molding will become more complex and difficult as the amount of the accommodating cavities A1 becomes more, so more molds are required and cost is hard to be efficiently reduced. Therefore, designing the shell member A must consider how to properly arrange the entire spatial configuration in the limited space and reduce manufacturing cost, and these factors are also the keys for installing more optical fiber adapters with higher density, and facilitating modularization for mass production.